And I'm so fucking beautiful I can't stand it

(drafts)

My mother didn't suck. She was great.

For @yellowlaboratory <3

+ bonus

Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time.

The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demi-goddess whose special charge is to protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seek her out with demands that she restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of anti-mentat. She feeds on that strong human desire for the mysterious. She is living proof that the 'analytic' has limits. She represents ultimate tension. She is the virgin-harlot - witty, vulgur, cruel, as destructive in her whims as a coriolis storm.

The last chapter, numbered in base-six Eridian numerals that Grace instinctively thinks in now, is inherently bittersweet. It's sweet because Ryland loves Rocky, this much is blatantly obvious, this much is a truth of him as a person, but I couldn't see him being incandescently happy on Erid as I came to expect from fandom context.

It's bitter because, well. He just seemed content more than anything. Begrudgingly so. (But I try to stay positive. What else have I got?) It doesn't help that the last conversation in the book between Grace and Rocky (Hey! You're leaking. I haven't seen that in a long-ass time.*) being about how Sol is saved, and if he wants, he can absolutely go home.

And he doesn't want to.

Record scratch! I wish that was true. No, it's not that simple, actually. If it was as cut and dry as that, then I wouldn't have this rotting taste in my mouth; because yeah, he doesn't want to leave Rocky, and Rocky (Speaking from a selfish perspective, I hope you stay. But that's just me.) obviously doesn't want him to leave; but Grace doesn't leave, primarily, because he's too old. Fifty-three. He doesn't think he can brave the loneliness of a four-year journey at his age. He also thinks there's not really people for him to go back to. (It's a long, lonely journey---Erid may not be where I'm from, but at least I have friends here.)

Also, it's important to note that one of Grace's primary character traits was his overwhelming love for Earth. (I hold my head up high. Maybe I will go home someday.)

He's not okay. And nobody around him, not even Rocky (who has way less swagger and pushiness in the audiobook than he does in the movie--he's much more of an engineer) knows how to take care of a late-career white guy who's been like TERMINALLY ill and is NO kind of good partner in his own care.

HOWEVER.

The news Rocky brings him... I think it cheers him up. I think it cheers him up A LOT.